Dabo Swinney explains to ESPN why he ranked Ohio State No. 11 in poll |
It's almost Sugar Bowl time as No. 2 Clemson will battle No. 3 Ohio State on Friday night on New Year's Day.
Clemson head coach Dabo Swinney was interviewed by ESPN's Tom Rinaldi on Saturday as he was asked about the No. 11 ranking that he gave the Buckeyes in his latest Coaches Poll ranking. "Yea overreaction," Swinney said about his ranking that made the rounds nationally. "First of all, my poll doesn't mean anything. But it means something to me, you know. It's my poll. I do it. It creates a stir because we just so happen to be playing Ohio State. It has nothing to do with Ohio State. Absolutely zero. You could change the name to Michigan, or Georgia, or Florida, or Tennessee, or Nebraska." Swinney wanted to reward the teams that played a full slate of games this season. "Any time you have a top 10, it should be that's special," he said. "This year, it's like really, really, really special. And I wanted it to be that way. And so I, you know, wanted to recognize the teams that played nine games or more. And so if you didn't play nine games, I just didn't consider you for the top 10. That's why they were 11." Swinney knows that the Buckeyes have the talent to do well against the Tigers. "Obviously, they're a great team," he said. "They're plenty good enough and talented enough to beat us -- good enough to go in the National Championship." But in my opinion, I don't think that is right that three teams have to play 13 games to win it all, and one team has to play eight. What universe am I living in? And it has nothing to do with them. It was about qualifying. And I didn't think they were qualified based on the number versus all these other teams. In my opinion, Texas A&M, Florida, Oklahoma, Cincinnati, they got punished for playing more games."
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